Aiea overpass repairs to begin

Aiea overpass repairs to start Monday night

Two westbound lanes of the H-1 freeway will be closed after 9 p.m.

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STAR-BULLETIN / SEPTEMBER 2006
The Aiea Heights Drive and Kaamilo Street overpasses frame a pedestrian overpass closed since Sept. 6 after it was struck by an oversize load being carried on an Army truck. Repair work on the pedestrian overpass is scheduled to begin Monday night.

Star-Bulletin staff
citydesk@starbulletin.com

Repair work is scheduled to begin Monday night on an Aiea pedestrian overpass that has been closed since it was struck Sept. 6 by an oversize load being carried on an Army truck.

Two of the six Ewa-bound lanes of the H-1 freeway will be closed after 9 p.m. Monday through Thursday while Hawaiian Dredging Construction Co. crews do preliminary repairs on the concrete bridge.

Two right lanes will be closed Monday and Tuesday nights, and two left lanes will be closed Wednesday and Thursday. The lane closures will end at 3:15 a.m., according to the state Department of Transportation.

The westbound freeway will be closed to traffic between the Halawa Interchange and the Waiau Interchange in Pearl City for one night during the week of Dec. 3. The contractor will install a precast section that will restore passage on the walkway.

The cost of the reconstruction is estimated at $500,000, said Scott Ishikawa, Transportation Department spokesman. That includes the $150,000 tab for demolition work done Sept. 6 after the accident. The state shut down that stretch of freeway for eight hours after the accident after officials deemed it unsafe to let traffic pass with the threat of concrete falling on vehicles.

An investigation determined that the boom of the hydraulic excavator being hauled in an Army tractor-trailer was 4 1/2 feet higher than the legal limit of 14 feet. The Army suspended the licenses of the driver and assistant driver.

The state decided to rebuild the 80-foot-long pedestrian overpass because there are schools on each end, Alvah Scott Elementary School on the makai side and Aiea High School on the mauka end.

The section of overpass over the eastbound lanes is a free-standing structure and did not need repair.
Source: http://archives.starbulletin.com/2006/11/25/news/story09.html

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